Elevated

Bucky took Luna for a walk and Nora took a shower, determined that if she couldn’t look fine her hair could at least not smell like a fire.

She was certain, the way she was about a lot of things, that Bucky felt guilty. As though there was something he could have done to prevent the whole thing. There wasn’t, and she wasn’t sure how to tell him so in a way that he would feel it.

She braided her hair, brushed her teeth, and reveled in how good it felt to be clean. A little of the memory washed away and felt less frightening. Then, because none of the things in the bag from her apartment were pajamas and her sweatsuit smelled like chemicals, she stole one of the shirts from Bucky’s closet. One with long sleeves so he couldn’t see the bandage on her arm. She was sure now that Darcy had packed the bag and envisioned this exact outcome. Her legs were mercifully unbruised.

She started The Holiday because she watched it when she was sick and this felt pretty close. Then she restarted it when Bucky got back because he’d never given her the title of a romantic comedy and she was extremely curious what he would think.

Luna darted to greet her and then took a spot in the vacant armchair. She seemed extremely happy with her evening and Nora couldn’t blame her. Bucky rounded the couch with a handful of pizza boxes and stopped dead.

“What?” Nora asked, though from the look on his face she thought she could guess.

Bucky dragged his eyes from her thigh and made it the rest of the way to the couch. He slid the boxes onto the coffee table and Nora flipped them open.

“I have a vested interest now in finding you something other than Hawaiian.” She had ordered him one for safety, as well as some kind of meat monstrosity and a Greek. She took a slice of the Greek and then picked off half the olives.

Bucky watched her do it, frowning. His eyes snagged again on her bare leg, and then he pointed at the pizza, “You ate it too.”

“I did,” Nora leant back to watch the woman on the screen have a meltdown, “It’s just an insane first choice.”

He opened his mouth like he wanted to argue with her, glanced at her leg, and sat back on the couch so he could point his eyes at the TV. Nora was extremely impressed. She was also pretty disappointed. She had really wanted to convince him she wasn’t that broken.

They watched the entire movie. At some point Bucky put his hand on her thigh, which he did all the time, but usually she was wearing pants and it turned out that made a lot of difference. His palm burned like a brand and made her really want to convince him she was fine. She didn’t, because now that she wasn’t starving, she was tired instead. She took her leg back, savoring the annoyed sound that came out of him, and rearranged so she could use him as a pillow instead. He seemed fine with it.

She slept through the end, but she’d seen the movie about twenty times, so it didn’t matter. When she woke up to credits and Bucky’s nudging she remembered to ask, “What’d you think?”

“Was alright.” He poked her, “Bed.”

Alright seemed like pretty high praise for him. She got up and went to the end of the hallway, then turned to watch him collect pizza boxes and shove them into the fridge. “Bucky!” He looked at her, “There’s food in your fridge!”

He snorted and she laughed the whole way down the hall. He brought her his duvet, flicking it out expertly to cover the bed and waited until she was settled with Luna near her feet before disappearing again. She frowned after him until she heard the shower start. Right, he had also been in a chemical fire.

She dozed off again. Whoever Tony Stark's decorator was, they had better taste in beds than Nora. When she woke a few minutes later it was to Bucky lingering in the doorway frowning, which was odd, and wearing the same clothes he’d gone into the shower wearing, which was also odd.

“What’re you doing?” Nora asked, rolling into the middle of the giant bed and reaching for him. Luna huffed. Nora hadn’t forgotten about the gun in the nightstand and had done her dozing on the other side. He stepped forward and took her hand, still frowning. She knew there was a problem she just couldn’t quite figure it out, “What are you worried about?”

“I have nightmares,” he said eventually, not quite looking at her.

“Okay.” She’d guessed that when he said he didn’t sleep. He didn’t move. “Are you worried about hurting me by accident?” He didn’t fidget because Bucky didn’t do things like that, but he did flex his metal hand just a little. “Have you hurt someone else in your sleep before?”

After a minute he shook his head. Nora wasn’t really sure if that meant he hadn’t or just hadn’t been in a position to. She supposed it didn’t matter, “Well, either one of us can sleep on the couch,” He made an annoyed sound she thought might mean it wasn’t going to be her, “Or we can try.” She watched him very closely and couldn’t tell what he was thinking at all. “I would like to try.” He seemed to bend just a little. Nora thought she may have won that battle and moved to the next, “You don’t sleep in that.”

His hand flexed again, “No.”

“So,” she waved her hand at his outfit in general, “Why?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at her for a minute, then took off his shirt.

Nora thought that his hesitance probably had to do with the scars that started at the joint where black metal met skin and stretched in an awful tangle toward his chest. She’d seen them before, where they climbed similarly towards his spine. It would have been inaccurate to say they didn’t bother her. They did, in the same way the bruise on her ribs bothered him. The scars were a marker of something awful that had happened to him, and which she could do nothing about.

Regardless, they did nothing to stop the way her heart beat hard at the vast expanse of bare skin she was faced with. She let her eyes skim over the muscle of his chest and down his abs and felt her face get hot. The look on his face, when she managed to drag her eyes in a more respectful direction, was no longer unreadable.

He was smirking at her.

Nora was suddenly one hundred percent sure that every single touch he’d driven her crazy with for the past two weeks, was completely intentional. He had known exactly what he was doing and done it on purpose. Despite the burn in her cheeks, Nora doubled down, “You sleep in jeans?” His hands dropped immediately to flick open the button of his pants and Nora lost. She couldn’t watch him take his pants off and keep it together. She rolled over instead. Bucky laughed and she covered her face with her hands, “Oh my god.”

She felt the bed dip as he slid under the covers and it was all the warning she got before he wrapped an arm around her stomach and pulled her back against the hard plane of his body. She could feel every inch of him and wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to manage sleeping.

“Alright Nora?” He mumbled in her ear.

She wasn’t. She was on fire. She wanted to roll over and finish what they’d started in the living room. Instead, she squeaked a, “Yep.” And tried not the think too hard about the low chuckle that came out of him in response.

Bucky didn’t sleep for a long time. First because he was savouring the feeling of having his arm wrapped around Nora, her body pressed against his chest and their legs tangled together.

She didn’t mind his scars. He thought he should have fucking known that, but it was hard to remember when she wasn’t there looking at him. He’d just meant to have a quick shower so his sheets didn’t end up smelling like a chemical fire. But then his eyes had snagged on the tangle of them at the joint of his shoulder and the clawed hands of his anxiety reached up to hold his sternum and refused to let go. Nora was good at making it loosen its grip.

More than that the look on her face reminded him of the person he’d been. Back when he’d known exactly who he was and been confident in it. That person wasn’t gone, he thought. Just buried a little.

He listened to Nora breathe until the cadence shifted and he knew she was asleep. And then he was afraid.

He’d slept elbow-to-elbow with Steve or Sam or Clint a handful of times on missions. It was difficult, he was sure none of them slept long or well. He hadn’t hurt them, but he did wake up not sure who or where he was. He’d been halfway across the room, sweating and shaking, by the time he came back to himself the last time. He could remember the look on Steve’s face.

He was worried he might hurt Nora, but he was worried he’d frighten her too. He couldn’t know that either outcome was impossible and it scared him. He didn’t sleep much to begin with, he wondered if he could just stay awake. Lying in bed holding her seemed like a nice enough way to pass the hours.

But he thought she wanted to know. The way she wanted to know everything, like the information was important somehow. Whether it was big like the things he was scared of, or small like his favourite kind of coffee. She deserved to know, he just wished there was a better way to find out.

He tried to match her breathing and hoped he could be okay. He wasn’t, he didn’t think. But it turned out not to matter.

Luna woke him twice. Once when she curled up behind him and dropped her head onto his hip, and again when she shoved her cold nose against his neck. It was alarming, but not the way the nightmare that had been creeping into his mind was. He pet her ears and watched Nora frown in her sleep. He wondered if she was having a bad dream too. Just in case he looped his arm back around her stomach and pulled her a little closer.

When he woke for the third time there was light streaming out from between the curtains.